Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra

SHEPHERD SCHOOL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA LARRY RACHLEFF, Music Director DESMOND HOEBIG, Cello Saturday, September 28, 2013 8:00 p.m. Stude Concert Hall PROGRAM Egmont Overture, Op. 84 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Thomas Hong, conductor Violoncello Concerto in D Major, Op. 101 Franz Joseph Haydn Allegro moderato (1732-1809) Adagio Rondo. Allegro Desmond Hoebig, soloist INTERMISSION Le Tombeau de Couperin Maurice Ravel Prélude. Vif (1875-1937) Forlane. Allegretto Menuet. Allegro moderato Rigaudon. Assez vif Variaciones concertantes, Op. 23 Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) Tema per Violoncello ed Arpa (Adagio molto espressivo) Interludio per Corde (L’istesso tempo) Variazione giocosa per Flauto (Tempo giusto) Variazione in modo di Scherzo per Clarinetto (Vivace) Variazione drammatica per Viola (Largo) Variazione canonica per Oboe e Fagotto (Adagio tranquillo) Variazione ritmica per Trombe e Trombone (Allegro) Variazione in modo di Moto perpetuo per Violino (L’istesso tempo) Variazione pastorale per Corno (Largamente espressivo) Interludio per Fiati (Moderato) Ripresa dal Tema per Contrabasso (Adagio molto espressivo) Variazione finale in modo di Rondo per Orchestra (Allego molto) The reverberative acoustics of Stude Concert Hall magnify the slightest sound made by the audience. Your care and courtesy will be appreciated. The taking of photographs and use of recording equipment are prohibited. SHEPHERD SCHOOL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA String seating changes with each concert. Winds, brass, percussion and harp listed alphabetically. Violin I Double Bass Horn Eric Gratz, Andrew Banzhaf, Everett Burns concertmaster principal (Beethoven, Jesse Clevenger Eugene Ceremus Haydn, Ravel) Andrew Du Comb Jordan Koransky Nina DeCesare, Joshua Horne Zachary Spontak principal (Ginastera) Alexander Kovling Charlotte Nicholas Michael Ehrenkranz Markus Österlund Geoffrey Herd Spencer Park Flute Natalie Lin Nathanael Udell James Blanchard Melissa Wilmot Amanda Galick Trumpet Violin II Aaron Perdue Philip Hembree Anastasia Sukhopara, Kelly Zimba Andrew McCormick principal Piccolo Heather Thomas James Blanchard Trombone Andrea Jarrett Aaron Perdue Ryan Rongone Kuan-Yu Annie Chen Kelly Zimba Leah Nelson Harp Kaori Matsui Oboe Hope Cowan Kevin Tompkins Leah Craft Naomi Hoffmeyer Sophia Cho Gina Ford Kelly Mozeik Timpani Viola Titus Underwood Brandon Bell Jarita Ng, Wei Wang Lucas Sanchez principal Yvonne Smith English Horn Orchestra Manager Leah Gastler Michelle Pan and Librarian Stephanie Mientka Kaaren Fleisher Rachel Li Clarinet Samuel Almaguer Production Manager Cello Nicholas Davies Mandy Billings Coleman Itzkoff, Zachary Gauvain principal Sean Krissman Assistant Production Jacob Hanegan Manager Maxwell Geissler Bassoon Brian Figat Clare Monfredo Jessica Goldbaum Chris Lee Francesca McNeeley Sean Gordon Francis Schmidt Jeffrey Nesrsta PROGRAM NOTES Egmont Overture . Ludwig van Beethoven After Napoleon’s invasion of Vienna in the spring of 1809, the director of the Imperial Theatre Joseph Hartl Edlen von Büchsenstein arranged productions of Goethe’s Egmont and commissioned Beethoven to write incidental music for the play. Goethe’s drama, which mirrored the politi- cal situation in the city, is set in Brussels during the sixteenth century, when the Netherlands was severely oppressed under the Spanish domina- tion. In the play, the Duke of Alba, a representative of the Spanish throne, imprisons the resistance leader Egmont and condemns him to death. Egmont’s beloved Klärchen, as a representation of Freedom, appears to him in a vision the night before the execution. She tells Egmont that his death will inspire his people to fight successfully. He wakes to the sound of military music, ready to face the scaffold with dignity. Beethoven’s incidental music to Egmont consists of ten musical numbers, including the overture, entr’actes, songs, melodrama, and a concluding Siegessymphonie (Symphony of Victory). The overture opens with a somber introduction in F minor, followed by a compact sonata-form Allegro. After a turbulent first theme and transition, the second theme recalls the introduction, but now in the relative major key of A-flat. The coda, by contrast, pres- ages music of the Victory Symphony and provides a triumphant conclusion by transforming F minor into F major, the arrival of which is intensified through the long-held dominant harmony. Cello Concerto in D Major, Op. 101 . Franz Joseph Haydn Haydn’s output of concertos, although not comparable to his symphonies, is substantial in quantity and variety. He composed concertos for a number of instruments including organ, piano, flute, bassoon, horn, trumpet, violin, cello, and his patron Nikolaus Esterházy’s instrument, the baryton (a stringed instrument similar to a bass viol). With the exception of his early keyboard concertos, Haydn’s concertos were commissions that he composed for members of the orchestra at Esterházy’s court, when he served as Kapellmeister from 1761 to 1790. It was during this period in 1783 that Haydn composed the Cello Concerto in D Major. Anton Kraft, a court cellist, was for a long time believed to have written this concerto, until historians discovered Haydn’s autograph score in 1951. This Concerto showcases the solo cellist’s capacity to manage both techni- cally demanding and lyrical passages. The first movement unfolds in a sonata form. After the orchestral statement of the two principal themes, the soloist takes over and decorates those themes with double stops and running passages. The first theme in the recapitulation is divided between the orchestra and the soloist, heightening the dialogue between the two. In tonight’s perfor- mance, Maurice Gendron’s cadenza will be featured at the end of this movement. The lyrical Adagio in A major contains three statements of the principal theme separated by two episodes, one of which moves unexpectedly to the key of C major. The Concerto concludes with a lively Allegro in a rondo form, in which the challenging passagework of the solo part echoes that of the first movement and highlights the cellist’s manual dexterity. Le Tombeau de Couperin . Maurice Ravel Originally a commemorative genre of poetry from the Renaissance, the tombeau was taken on by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French lutenists and harpsichordists to serve the same function of paying homage to someone who had recently died. The early twentieth century saw the revival of tombeau in France. While transcribing the “Forlane” from François Couperin’s Con- certs royaux in 1914, Ravel began composing a piano suite, which he later cast as Le Tombeau de Couperin. World War I interrupted his work, and Ravel did not complete Le Tombeau until 1917 after he had enlisted as an ambulance driver and experienced the horror of war. Le Tombeau has a double dedica- tion—to Ravel’s friends who had fallen during the war and to Couperin, whose music symbolizes a glorious French past during the Grand siècle. Shortly after the première in April 1919, Ravel orchestrated four of the six movements in Le Tombeau, omitting the Fugue and Toccata and changing the order of Rigaudon and Menuet. The Prélude, set in a binary form, gives prominence to the oboe in the first section and the winds in the second. The Forlane follows Couperin’s example in its rondo-like form and its metric char- acteristics. The underlying harmony, however, is distinctive in Ravel’s music: in addition to the modal—rather than tonal—sound at the cadences where Ravel avoids the leading tone, augmented harmonies also add a distinctive color to the music. The Menuet has a ternary structure. The central section is a musette, whose pastoral character is evoked by Ravel’s use of drone in the basses. Although a rigaudon appears in Couperin’s Concerts royaux, Ravel’s Rigaudon is more akin to Rameau’s in his Pièces de clavecin of 1724. Both highlight repeated melodic figures and stress the downbeats, recalling the rigaudon’s folk origin. Variaciones concertantes, Op. 23 . Alberto Ginastera As a classically trained Argentine composer who also studied in the United States with Aaron Copland, Alberto Ginastera applied both his academic training and national influences to his compositions. The Variaciones concertantes (1953) belongs to Ginastera’s second stylistic period, 1947-57, which he himself termed a period of “subjective nationalism.” Similar to Bartók, Ginastera synthesizes folk elements, rather than quoting them directly. In the composer’s own words, the Variaciones “have a subjective Argentine character. Instead of using folkloristic material, I try to achieve an Argentine atmo- sphere through the employment of my own thematic and rhythmic elements.” The work begins with a theme and an interlude for strings, followed by seven variations, each showcasing a specific instrument or a group of instruments. After an interlude for the winds, a “Reprise of Theme for Double Bass” and a final orchestralrondo conclude the Variaciones. The opening theme is stated in the declamatory cello part, under which the harp strikes the chord that becomes the harmonic basis for the following variations. The solois- tic treatment of the instruments reflects the term “concertante” (suggesting interaction of various musical forces) in the title. The final movement is based on the malambo, an Argentine dance that Ginastera favors in several of his compositions, including the “Danza final” from the ballet Estancia, Op. 8 (1941). The rapid compound meter and continuous motion of repeated notes in the Finale derive from the execution

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